The cap is also called the “witch’s broom” - it is small education on a tree, benign in nature. Basically it has the form of a drop from which thin branches grow, collected in a bunch. In the cross section, you can observe a structure of striking knots. Processing the burl is not easy, although it can still be ground and polished. The result of the work has a very attractive appearance.

Some areas of birch burl may give off a mother-of-pearl appearance. In industry it is not of particular value, but is quite expensive due to its beauty and uniqueness.

Sometimes burl can be used as a veneer for furniture, but most often it is burl from exotic trees. But birch burl is used to make beautiful boxes, small women’s jewelry or hairpins, and cigarette cases.

Birch burl has a high-quality texture, so a knife with a wooden handle is very beautiful and expensive.

It is impossible to find two identical burls in nature; even the halves differ from each other. They can be seen on many different trees. In our latitudes, birch burl is highly valued. It does not grow large, the maximum diameter is like that of a large plate.

Due to the dense texture, it is difficult to make any design on the mouth guard, and there is no point.

So that the birch burl can be used for its intended purpose in the future, it is very important to assemble it correctly. To do this, we will provide you with detailed instructions:

Correct processing of birch burl

Very often, when sawing a burl, a unique and inimitable pattern is formed that the master will not want to change. In other cases, the burl after sawing is processed:

• Large burls are almost always sawn, since several items can be made from it at once. The burl is divided into several plates, the thickness of each depends on what kind of object you plan to make.
• In order to get an excellent drawing in the future, you should think about the cutting angle in advance. The more sleepers there are on the cut, the better.
• When the burl is fresh, the pattern appears weakly, but sawing is much easier.
• To ensure that the drawing appears in full beauty, the cap should be thoroughly steamed before making the item.
• You can steam the burl at home; fine sawdust is suitable for this. To carry out the procedure, take a container of the required size (it is recommended to use an old pan, since the dyes that will appear cannot be washed off). The sawdust is spread in a generous layer on the bottom, and a drip is placed on top. You cannot lay them tightly; there must be a gap of at least 0.5 centimeters. Sawdust is sprinkled on top in a thin layer.
• The placed cap is poured into a saucepan with well-salted water (mostly the bottom layer). The water should not completely cover the workpieces, but only touch them a little. Salt is taken at the rate of 1 tbsp. l. for 1 liter of water. If it’s a little more, it doesn’t matter.
• The prepared cap is covered with a lid and placed on low heat. As soon as the mixture boils, count for about 10 hours and allow the burl to steam well. To avoid troubles, look into the container every hour and add water if necessary.
• After a while, remove the container from the heat and leave to cool.
• After cooling, the workpieces are washed under running water and left to dry. To ensure they dry evenly, they should be turned over every few hours. The drying period lasts about 3-4 days.
• When the workpieces are completely dry, they are again steamed according to the above scheme and dried again. The procedure is repeated up to three times.
• If after steaming the bark does not fall off completely, it is carefully removed by hand.
• It is preferable to carry out the drying procedure outside. The first day they turn it over quite often, on the third day 1-2 times is enough.
• It’s great if it is possible to carry out final drying in a special oven several times.
• If the drip is very large (larger than a basketball), this type of treatment will not work. The drying or steaming process may cause cracks and other damage.
• Boiled as basically divided into parts. Whole growths on birch are treated as common tree– by sanding and varnishing.
• When evaporated, the burl plates acquire the shade of the released components; it can be very diverse (yellow with a golden tint, brown, etc.).
• After treatment, subsequent procedures can be carried out, for example, varnishing or painting.
• Before varnishing, the surface is sanded well using coarse sandpaper, then fine sandpaper. Wood dust is wiped off with a soft cloth.
• The design will appear in all its glory if the tray is treated with wax.

In fact, working with a burl is very painstaking, requiring attention and a lot of time. But what comes out of the work is certainly pleasing. Birch burl makes excellent souvenirs that have an individual and unique design.

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15.05.2017

The tree is the most common plant on earth.

Nature is incredibly generous, since it has given a person not only the opportunity to admire the beauty of trunks and leaves, but also to derive practical benefits from wood, because for several thousand years people have been using wooden products in their everyday life, building houses, boats, making furniture and household utensils, producing musical instruments, crafts, etc.

Today there is no material that can completely replace the wonderful natural properties of wood, since its density, color, texture, texture pattern and shades are unique in each case.

The natural uniqueness of the wood pattern is especially evident in cape And suveli(spherical or teardrop-shaped growths on trees), which pundits identified as diseases.

These formations create a complex enchanting pattern of wood fibers inside, consisting of an interweaving of colored lines, spots, inclusions, smoothly flowing into each other, which thus form a pattern of special beauty. Thanks to the richness of colors and lines, both burl and suvel are excellent natural materials for the production of various crafts, decorations, and interior items, since they have an exclusive texture (it is impossible to find two identical patterns in nature), and special strength and durability.

Let's try to determine how burl and suvel differ from each other, and what they have in common.

Cap

Cap ( caporoot or as it is also popularly called " witch's broom") is a round, benign formation on a trunk or branch with a large number wood knots. The burl differs from the suveli in that it has many bumps on its outer side, which are created thanks to accessory and dormant buds. These formations look like dark spikes and tubercles, which is why, often on the burl, you can see small shoots and twigs growing directly from it.

According to some scientists, a burl on a tree occurs as a result of either a sharp change in the development of the plant, that is, it can have both a natural and anthropogenic cause. Some scientists believe that the appearance of an ugly tumor on a tree may be a hereditary deformity.

Burl is found mainly on deciduous trees, such as oak, linden, maple, alder, poplar, walnut, but most often it can be found on birch.

It has been noted that on average, for one tree with a burl, there are from three to five thousand trees without such formation, so finding a good burl (unlike suveli) is quite difficult.

Most often on trees there is a root burl, which can simply be gigantic size.

As a rule, caporoot It has a faint texture inside and a weak color contrast pattern.

A burl formed on a branch often has the shape of an irregular ball and, unlike a bonnet root, when cut transversely, its internal texture is replete with patterns with the cores of knots and has a peculiar “needle-like” structure in the form of a small ornament with dashes and dots. The internal fibers of wood intertwine with each other in different directions, creating a picturesque pattern, and inclusions of dormant buds make the texture even richer, so burl is most often used as a decorative element in the manufacture of various crafts, knife handles, gun butts, original dishes and other souvenirs.

In processing, thanks to the strong density of its texture and huge number The knot burl is not simple, but at the same time it is perfectly sanded and polished.

The main color of the internal texture of the burl is various shades of black or brown colors, ocher. Even if you take two halves of the same burl, they will still be different and have a different pattern, the structure of the build-up is so heterogeneous.

The wood of the burl is stronger than that of the suveli, and fifty to seventy percent stronger than that of the tree on which it was formed.

Small items are also made from burl: boxes, cigarette cases, hairpins, earrings, bracelets, and small jewelry.

There is no point in creating a carved pattern on the burl, since the texture and texture of the wood is beautiful in itself.

Suvel

The formation of suveli is caused by a tree disease (cancer) and it most often represents a growth twisted and woven into a lump, which is why it is also called let's svilem.

Typically, the wisp grows two to three times faster than the tree itself and has a teardrop-shaped or spherical shape located around the trunk or branch. The main difference between suveli and burl is that it is formed not from dormant buds, but thanks to a complex interweaving of curved different sides annual rings (hence the name svil). By this feature, cones on a tree can be easily distinguished from each other.

Growths (especially on birch) are quite common, although the reason for its formation has not been fully studied. Presumably, the formation of a tangle can be initiated by a fungus or mechanical damage to the tree bark.

Suvel (popularly called wood bone), since its cut resembles the stains of marble (with the same iridescence and radial section), and the thin parts are visible through and look like bone, although the density of the tissues, as mentioned above, in suveli is less than in burl, so its wood is less durable.

A suveli growth can grow to gigantic proportions (for example, in the Vatican there is a font carved from a single piece of wood). However, the finer the pattern, the richer and brighter the pattern inside, although the pattern with ornamental elements will in any case be softer (without the “spikes” and “needles” patterns required for a burl).

The internal texture of suveli has a delicate pearlescent tint, and the colors of each can vary greatly and contain white, yellow (resembling the color of amber), as well as brown, pinkish and green colors. The shade of suveli depends on where the tree grows and how it is dried.

You can form a suvel yourself; to do this, just tie a tree trunk or branch with wire. At the site of the constriction, a convex formation created by annual rings will soon appear.

Suvel also lends itself well to processing, can be sanded and polished well, and its mother-of-pearl cut, reminiscent of marble, plays with streaks, has a unique texture and seems to glow from within.

Of course, it is impossible to determine how beautiful the pattern will be based on the appearance of the suveli, but the more clumsy and steeper the growth looks externally, the richer its texture and pattern will be inside.

The root (butt) part of suveli is considered the most valuable. It is of interest to woodcarvers, artists, knife makers, sculptors and cabinetmakers, who choose this material for its exclusive cut pattern, high strength, resistance to rotting and unique ability for processing.

Finding and preparing growths

Naturally, it is necessary to look for bulges on a tree in the forest. At the same time, many people confuse burl and svil with a similar mushroom from the genus (Inonotus), which most often lives on birch and is called chaga or black birch mushroom.

You need to learn to determine where the mushroom is and where the growth is.

The best time to cut down saplings and burls is in the fall (September-October), when the trees stop the natural movement of sap and begin preparing for winter.

It must be remembered that without a good saw, suvel or burl, especially if they are very clumsy, it is not easy to cut down, so this work is best done with a chainsaw, but it must be remembered that the tool chains quickly become dull due to the special strength of the build-up.

If you don’t have a chainsaw, you will have to work with a hand saw, but it must have sharp teeth with a good spread so that the master does not torment himself or the tree, and does not injure it in vain.

The cut area (to avoid the formation of an unwanted hollow for the tree) must be immediately covered with garden varnish and painted over oil paint or cover it with clay.

When a massive caporoot, it must be remembered that cutting it is fraught with serious consequences for the tree and as a result of the injury it may die.

All of the above properties of both burl and svilya elevate these unique materials at the top of the value among other types of wood, since they are used both in the finishing of various utilitarian items, as well as jewelry, small plastic items and utensils.

If you like to go outdoors, you've probably seen trees with strange spherical growths on the trunk or near the roots while walking through the forest. Such peculiar growths or nodules, covered with rough bark, are called mouth guards. As a rule, they occur in places where shoots and dormant buds grow. They can be found on birch, linden, alder, maple, rowan, oak, pine, larch, thuja, eucalyptus, myrtle, and walnut.

Cap, growing on the trunk of a tree is called a stem, and at the root - a capo root. Capo root is found in the forest much more often than stem root and can reach one and a half meters in diameter. According to their shape, mouthguards are divided into circular, encircling and lateral. Sometimes the mouth guards grow so much that they can weigh up to 1 ton.

Cap– a rare, very hard and beautiful material with unusual design fibers that look like marble. It was widely known in our country back in the 12th century. In Rus', dishes were made from it, which were called burl. Mainly, these were hollowed out bowls, ladles and bowls. IN early XIX centuries, burl, along with valuable species of wood, was used for decorative finishing of furniture; boxes and snuff boxes were cut out of it, which were then inlaid with gold, mother-of-pearl or ivory and exported to other countries. Thanks to your unique qualities and extraordinary warmth of perception, the cap was highly valued all over the world.

Today cap serves as a material for the manufacture of artistic and decorative products (candlesticks, salt shakers, vases for sweets, fruits and flowers), and is also used for veneering furniture. The hardness of burl is several times greater than that of ordinary wood and is quite difficult to process, so products from it have to be made by hand.

Burl extraction is done with great care and only in cases where it can be cut down entirely. The problem is that it is almost impossible to separate it without damaging the tree itself, so it is best to look for burl at logging sites among already cut trees. The burl is cut out with part of the trunk to prevent it from cracking when drying, and also because otherwise it is simply impossible to separate it from the tree due to its high hardness. Depending on the size of the future product, the burl is cut into plates. Usually, on a fresh cut, the pattern is pale and inconspicuous, so the burl is steamed. After drying, the tray is ready for use. As a rule, burl products are coated with a special varnish or natural beeswax, which gives them a matte finish and conveys the warmth of wood well.

In its raw form, the burl can be used as a decorative element. For example, graceful small burls can be mounted on the wall of the room, either separately or as part of an original composition, and large knotted burls can be placed on the floor or a special stand as a natural decoration that emphasizes the eco-friendly nature of the style of the room.

Of all naturally occurring burls, only 10% can be used to create decorative and artistic products, and the period from the beginning to the end of its processing can last several years. These periods cannot be reduced even with the help of modern technologies because of negative influence on the color and natural properties of the material. All these features of the burl determine its uniqueness, high value and originality, making it truly exotic, a symbol of ancient traditions in the modern world.

What are mouth guards and suveli, how do they differ? How and where to prepare them? How to quickly and efficiently dry growths at home?

Cap

So, first, let's define some concepts.

Cap(aka " witch's broom") is a benign formation on a tree, which is a bunch of thin branches growing from a teardrop-shaped (most often) growth. When viewed in a cross section, it has a texture with pronounced knot cores. It is difficult to process due to the highly curled texture and a huge number of knots. Extremely beautiful , durable, perfectly sanded and polished.

Numerous individual areas have a pearlescent tint. It has no great industrial significance, but is highly valued because of its beauty. If it is used in industry, it is only in the form of veneer for finishing furniture (burls from exotic tree species are mainly used), as well as for the production of small products such as boxes, cigarette cases, women's hairpins, and small jewelry (birch burls). The use of burl on knife handles is considered good taste and is also valued by wood carvers for its unique texture.

It is impossible to find two identical pieces of burl - even halves of sawn burl have different pattern, the growth is so heterogeneous. It grows on many trees (linden, alder, birch, maple, oak, etc.), but the most valuable and beautiful is birch (of those growing in our latitudes). The growth is usually small, at most the size of a volleyball or a large plate.

There is no point in cutting out any pattern on the burl, since the texture clogs everything up.

The photo shows a birch burl. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the cut exactly birch burl(I took these pictures near my native police station, and, as you understand, they wouldn’t let me cut anything down there... But I contrived and found an ash burl; most of the burls are similar in texture and differ only in the color and size of the knots’ cores).

(svil) - as the name implies, the growth was named because of its structure. "Twisted structure"

This is putting it mildly. Suvel is a drop-shaped or spherical growth on a tree (there is also a ring variety that covers the tree trunk around the perimeter), usually grows 2-3 times faster than the tree itself. When cut, it has a texture similar in pattern to marble and mother-of-pearl (this is the main difference from mouth guard; in the future, do not confuse suvel and cap). The presence of mother-of-pearl stains on polished wood creates a beautiful shimmering picture that glows from within. Svil is also poorly processed, like burl, but not as hard. The size varies from the size of a nut to 1.5 meters in height (I myself saw one on a birch) and up to 2 meters in diameter (a ring suvel that completely covered the tree trunk).

The font in the Vatican is worth a lot more than a meter in diameter, cut from a single piece of suveli. I myself was once sitting in a chair carved from suveli. It holds fine threads perfectly, but cutting suvel is not recommended. It is better to sand and varnish (impregnate with oil). The product will only benefit from this.

The most valuable is the root or butt fork. The presence of dark veins and clearly defined twisted annual rings. This is a fairy tale. BEAUTIFUL, that says it all. Barrel suvel has a finer texture and a more subtle “frosty” pattern. And lighter wood. In terms of strength, butt suvel is slightly superior to trunk suvel due to the structure of the tree trunk. Suvel is durable, beautiful, easy to polish and sand. Well-dried and treated, it begins to “glow” from the inside (with proper impregnation with oils, the wood becomes like amber and even a little transparent). Usually has a color from pale yellow or pinkish-brown to completely ocher-brown. It all depends on the conditions and drying time. The cap has the same colors.

As you can see, suvel is completely different from burl.

- this is a mushroom (not to be confused with the tinder fungus) and we do not need it for our purposes.

Blank

Where to look for growths... Naturally in the forest. BUT! Certain places there is no growth, they grow spontaneously, and the most beautiful growths will be found by the most wide-eyed and persistent. This activity is akin to mushroom hunting - who is more and more e gal forest, he got more.

We cut off the growth. We do this with a sharp saw. Otherwise, you will get tired of sawing, and the tree will begin to become shaggy. We do not peel off the bark.

I highlight in red:

1. If the growth is a “trunk” or a cap root, then it is better to refrain from cutting it down - the tree may die. It is advisable to purchase similar burls and strands during legal logging, when the tree is doomed anyway.
2. It is advisable to cut down the growths in the dry season, ideally at the end of August, beginning of September, before the sap begins to flow.
3. Don't forget to cover the cut on the wood with oil paint or wax or something similar.

Drying

So how to dry? Using the "steaming" method. I’ll say right away that this method is suitable for small pieces of wood: about half the size of a soccer ball or a small log.

1. We take an unnecessary pan (bucket) and throw a piece of wood there. You need to take an unnecessary pan, since during the cooking process a very tricky broth is formed, which is then very troublesome to wash. It’s better to clean the wood of any tatters of birch bark and other fragile and dangling pieces - they will fall off anyway.

   I'm considering exactly birch growth, as the most accessible and beautiful. The remaining growths are cooked using the same technology. The log is accordingly cleaned of any debris and fragile particles. Pour water. It is convenient to do this with a faceted glass (it contains 250 ml). The water should cover the piece of wood by about a centimeter or two. Naturally, the tree floats up, but let’s press it to the bottom and we’ll see everything. It doesn’t matter what kind of water you pour, cold or hot, it will still boil. You can throw as much wood into a saucepan as you like; the volume of an individual piece of wood is important, not the total volume of wood.

2. We take table salt, whatever you don’t mind. We're not making soup. Add 2 large tablespoons per liter of water.
   with a top of salt. You can do more, as much as you like, it’s okay, it’s impossible to overdo it. The main thing is that the water is sickly salty. You can use sea clean water(precisely clean, otherwise it will smell disgusting of mud). The salt will draw sap from the tree, but will not saturate the tree.
3. We find sawdust of resinous wood. Spruce and pine are the easiest to get. Take a saw and go ahead. We need two powerful handfuls of sawdust (raking the sawdust with both hands). Precisely sawdust, not shavings from a simple hand plane. The shavings will come from an electric planer (you can get them at the nearest sawmill or plan them yourself). I always use them. They are quite small and can usually be obtained in large quantities and easily. The more resin in the sawdust, the better. And the finer the sawdust, the better. Pour into a saucepan. Sawdust will give the suveli a pleasant ocher color. From soft pink-yellow to ocher-brown. And also see O ly will add strength to the wood and reveal texture.
4. When the water boils, reduce the heat and leave it simmering for 6-8 hours, longer if you have the patience. If the saucepan is large, then you don’t have to turn down the flame, let the water boil and bubble. But you need to watch so that the water does not boil away completely. Salt, sawdust, temperature and time will do their job. Add water as needed. During the cooking process, a red “broth” is formed. And scale. It is better to remove scale immediately. It is very difficult to wash off.
5. 6-8 hours passed (depending on the size of the piece of wood). We take out the piece of wood. We rinse under running water to remove sawdust. Water from the pan
   We throw it out as unnecessary, but you can leave it for next time if you have somewhere to store it. But it's easier to pour out the water. We throw the growth
   on the closet, wrapping it in nothing. Let it cool for a day or two.
6. We repeat the cooking and drying process 2-4 times depending on the volume of wood. To speed up the process, you can use a pressure cooker. The time is reduced to 4-6 hours.
7. During the last cooking, you need to quickly peel off the bark while the tree is hot. Although she herself should fall off by this time. Carefully!!! Hot!!! Use gloves!
8. We throw it on the closet for a week or two. The tree is basically already dry, but let the remaining moisture go away. The tree will “get used” to the atmosphere. After final drying, the tree will become like bone, and it can be cut, sawed, polished. There will be no foreign smell. It will smell only of wood.
9. In the process of accelerated drying of wood, you need to remember that small cracks may appear, and therefore you need to give
   allowance for their removal in subsequent processing.
10. I remind you once again that large pieces cannot be dried like this. Cracked. Necessarily. Verified.
11. After the wood has finally gotten used to the atmosphere, we make a product from it. It is advisable to soak the suvel and cap with oil, and if
    If there is a desire, then wax too. The wood will show its texture, “play,” as they say, and all its inner beauty will appear.

If you have any questions or any clarifications about the technology described above, I will answer to the best of my ability.

A wide variety of crafts (boxes, cigarette cases, frames, etc.) have long been made from burl, a material of extraordinary strength and beauty. Excellent examples of burl, or, as it was called, “onion” dishes, dating from the 16th-17th centuries, are kept in the Armory Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin, as well as in the Zagorsk State Historical and Art Museum-Reserve. Looking at them, you won’t immediately think that they were made with an axe, a scraper and a knife from a piece of wood, or more precisely, a growth on a birch tree.

The name of such a growth is kap, and it comes, as is commonly believed, from the ancient Slavic word “kap”, which means head. At first glance, the burl growing on a tree really resembles the shape of a human head. Burls can be found both on the branches of old trees and on the trunk itself - stem burl. If you remove the bark, you will see that the “head” is completely covered with tubercles, papillae, and needles. The rarest and therefore most valuable burls are found, as a rule, on the branches. Usually its dimensions are small: 10...15 cm, but sometimes there are specimens up to 40 cm or more. To determine the value of the growth, the master made a small cut and with a damp cloth, or even simply, impatiently slobbering on his finger, ran it over the cut to see the main thing - the pattern, unique in each burl “smelting”. The burl lends itself well to processing, does not warp, does not crack, does not swell, does not shrink, and is also so durable and weighty that some “craftsmen” wastefully make hammers out of it.

Burls are found on oak, walnut, black alder, aspen, but most often on birch. Sometimes there are several burl growths on one tree. Some experts believe that the most beautiful wood is from birch burl, others - from walnut. A cap root is nothing more than a burl formed at the root collar of a tree. Sometimes it protrudes above the surface of the earth. The “underground” burl (on the roots) can be detected by the shoots it sends out every spring. These non-viable, quickly withering shoots give the texture of the caporoot black dots located among the lighter-colored fibers of the trunk.

Caporoots are either circular, encircling the tree, or lopsided. The latter most often form on the south side. The largest of the caporoots reach a diameter of up to 2 m and weigh up to a ton.

Oak and walnut caporoots are especially large in size. More than one tabletop can be made from these. The old masters of Vyatka once covered furniture with plates sawn from caporoot. True, the root burl is not valued as highly as the real one, grown on a tree trunk or branch. The wood at the root burl is softer, and the pattern is simpler. Large cap root is characteristic of birches 70-80 years old, growing freely in clearings or forest edges. As a rule, burl birches grow most often in mixed forest, usually along streams, small rivers, near lakes and swamps, and they usually do not grow too close to each other.

The burl also has a double - suvel. This is a woody fold that sometimes forms at the site of a bend or break in a young tree. Suvel wood is also quite strong. Cabinetmakers use it to make handles for tools, turn out skittles and croquet balls. It is quite easy to distinguish a suvel from a burl, since the surface of the first is smooth, and its cut (cut) does not have the main advantage of a burl - a beautiful texture. On the same section, only long and sparse zigzags of fibers are visible.